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Relationships
Diana Daly
Key points
Technology, especially mobile apps, reshapes love and sexuality, converging online dating with love, sex, loneliness, and marketing.
Historical parallels show a gradual shift from past “sexting” to modern expressions through selfies, emphasizing the enduring nature of intimate communication.
Selfies redefine romance, empowering women in sexting, yet introducing complexities related to legal implications and societal norms.
A personal narrative highlights social media’s influence on self-perception, body image, and insecurities, leading to self-obsession and a quest for a curated online identity.
Explores interconnected relationships in online dating, influenced by biases, societal norms, and the high-stakes nature of dating.
Examines the shift from social media connections to direct communication, speculating on contemporary college students’ approaches, emphasizing human choices in shaping dating experiences.
Expressions of and searches for love and sexuality pervade all corners of the web today, particularly the world of mobile applications. If there is one area of life that we can say has been deeply changed by technology today, it is the conflagration of love, sex, loneliness, and marketing which we will simply call online dating.
Section 1: Sexting and selfies
As always, history reveals that the changes enacted through technology on online dating have been gradual; that there is a great deal of convergence between how we have loved and lusted in the past and how we do so now. For example, this video by the Atlantic Monthly provides examples of sexual texting or “sexting” style messages exchanged among lovers and lusters in generations and centuries past.
Selfies are a new genre of photography, and art, according to Jerry Saltz in this article for New York Magazine. They also may signify a new sense of self-reflection that is redefining romance and sexuality. For example, images of nude women have been circulated on every type of medium used in history. But in the age of selfies and sexting, women are now the most frequent photographers of the female form; the sexualizing gaze is directed at the self, and then shared with the world. In her article entitled Sexting as Media Production, Amy Hasinoff promotes the idea that sexting can be empowering for young women. She also unveils the complications when laws designed to punish people for circulating pornographic images and abusing children are applied to young people who are expressing sexuality over phones and online. As seen in the erotic photos just above, the online circulation of sexualized images is an old practice with new players.
Section 2: Connecting to the network and infiltrating the tribe
A significant part of human social life is organized around who we form lasting romantic relationships. The online world, once idealized as a place of an